Monthly Archives: September 2014

The author of Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self, immigrated to the United States from the Philippines as a young child and uses the book to both tell the story of his family and upbringing and explore what he sees as the demeaning view of Asian men in American society, including, apparently, from Asian women — as well as the absurdity of the whole concept of “Asian” as a category. It’s not until the end of the book that the author introduces rays of hope in the form of a handful of strong role models, from politicians to sports figures to CEOs. I particularly liked the personal story (as always), and living in an area with a large Asian population I think there may be many more rays of hope, not yet visible at the national level, perhaps.

Panic in a Suitcase starts with a beautifully messy, understated, funny story of a family of Ukrainian immigrants in New York. While the parents and grandparents strive to find jobs matching their prior occupations and to integrate into their new country, at least to some extent, the uncle stubbornly refuses to leave Odessa but has to pretend otherwise, while the young daughter observes and narrates. A great success.

Alas, part two follows the same characters a decade later, with the uncle still in Odessa but now a famous poet, and the story becomes hackneyed and predictable, albeit with the same musing asides and dry style as part 1. Consider stopping half way!

Reading backwards from Love Story, With Murders, Talking to the Dead debuts Fiona Griffiths as an independently-minded detective who is able to see links between seemingly disconnected activities, and is not afraid to act on her hunches, whether or not she has cleared them with her superiors (usually not). I enjoyed this story more than Love Story, With Murders: fewer faux-pas, lots of snarky side-comments, but still a hefty and unnecessary dose of fashion-conscious commentary. I doubt that Fiona cares much about what she wears!

The Tastemakers: Why We’re Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue overflows with stories about food trends, from the cupcakes of the cover to the health crazes of acai and kale and the introduction of kiwis and black rice by motivated players in the food industry. And that’s about it: it turns out that food trends are just like trends in fashion or music, they come and go without much logic. Cupcakes will soon return to the elementary school birthday staple they once were.

The author is very convincing: why, indeed, should legislators dictate the size of windows in nursing homes rather than allowing inspectors to use common sense to decide whether residents have enough fresh air — or any other of the many examples he uses? The great weakness of the book, in my mind, lies in the solutions that the author suggests, as he advocates no less than amendments to the constitution, all very sensible, starting with an automatic sunsetting of financial laws to force regular reviews — but it seems rather delusional to think that the very problems that have created the overdose of regulation would allow passing constitutional amendments. An A for surfacing the problem, but F for solutions.

Home Leave features a family whose workaholic father takes around the world, forcing his daughters and his wife to reinvent themselves across multiple continents. The story is told from multiple perspectives, including the grandmother’s house, a tour de force that flops, sadly. The author spins interesting tales but they never seems to rise higher than how confusing it is for children and spouses to tag along to locales they did not choose and how expat families retract on themselves.

The hero of Your Face in Mine is a public radio reporter, who just suffered crushing personal and professional losses, and is hired to create the biography of a childhood friend who used to be white and Jewish, like the reporter, but has undergone a mysterious series of surgeries and treatments to live as an African American. The reporter is an interesting character, and the premise is intriguing — alas the end of the story dissolves into a standard greed and malfeasance thread that disappoints. Too bad as the inner dialog of the hero seemed just about perfect!